The most comfortable heels I have ever worn!
I know a lot of people in their late teens and early twenties start wearing heels, but how can you wear heels without knowing how to? When your regular balance is completely thrown off by those 4 inch spikes beneath your feet? Or even 6 inches? What are you supposed to stop yourself from falling flat on your face in from of that cute guy you’ve been dying to go out with? Part of that is down to yes, practicing, but it’s also down to a few important tips and tricks that every woman should have up her sleeve. This is the first part of a guide on how to wear heels, broken down into 10 tips to help you confidently wear heels.
1. Know Your Feet! And Size Up!
It’s super important that you take a look at your feet and understand the contours and what might affect the way you wear your heels. For me, that means I have to take into account my extra long toes and how they affect the way i would wear pointy toed heels or open toed sandals. This brings me to my second point, in that you should size up depending on your feet. Since I have long toes, this means that while I wear a size 7 in flats and sneakers, I size up to an 8 when I’m wearing pointy toed heels since naturally, there is less space in the toe box (the “pointy” part of the heel, where your toes go, usually it’s about 1 inch). By sizing up, I giving my toes space more room so they don’t get crushed and my feet don’t start to hurt after a few hours of wearing heels. With open toed sandals, I size up even more so that my toes don’t end up sticking out off the end of my heels like a hot mess. A caveat of sizing up is that the heel is a little big, but we’ll compensate for that in the next point. Another important point to remember, is that you shouldn’t buy heels that are a size small for you even if they are on sale or incredibly adorable, you may end up with a pair of unworn shoes sitting in the back of your closet. However, depending on the material used in the shoe you MAY be able to do something about the size. If your shoe is made out of faux or PU leather, there’s not much wiggle room for you to work with. But if you’re working with a more malleable material like fabric then you might be in luck. Fabric can be stretched width-wise, which will therefore increase the length by a bit. So if you’ve found a pair of shoes that you can’t bear to let somebody else have, keep these tips in mind and keep a good cobbler’s phone number on hand at all times. You never know when you might need it!
2. Wear an Gel Insert!
Gel inserts are really useful if you plan on wearing heels for a long period of time, they can be a major life saver. There are a LOT of options though, so which one should you pick? I’m not a podiatrist, but I have tested out a selection of inserts for you so you can figure out which ones work best for you! It really depends on where you think the issue is when you wear heels, so to figure that out, you should walk around the house in your heels. Do this for maybe an hour and see what part of your foot starts to hurt. If it’s ball of your foot causing you pain (the part just before your toes, it’s padded and a bit rounded, and acts as a “ball” which your foot uses as an axis), then you might consider using a padding just at that point of the shoe where the ball of your foot would rest, thus acting as a platform. If you feel like the heel of your foot starts hurting after wearing heels for a while then you might consider a full gel insert. If you have a tendency to get blisters on the back of your foot, the heel liners are for you, or in a pinch you can use anti-perspirant or deodorant to decrease friction. Be aware that gel inserts might cause your feet to get sweaty, so if you naturally have sweaty feet or your shoes aren’t that breathable, then take this into consideration.
3. Understand the Material!
It’s really important that you consider the material your heels are made out of. I said it before, that PU of faux leather is difficult to stretch, note that it also isn’t that breathable. So if you naturally have issues with foot sweat, or you feel like you are slipping around in your heels because of sweat, try to buy real leather shoes, or some other breathable fabric.
4. Decrease Friction!
To help keep your feet from slipping around in your heels you can use baby powder, but be careful since this might leave a residue. The baby powder will help soak up the sweat, so you will have to clean it out each time you’re done wearing the shoes and reapply. Another trick would be to apply deodorant to the bottoms or even just the arches of your feet. This will decrease the friction and then decrease your sweat.
5. Use Toe Socks
Everybody already knows about ballet flat socks, or liners as some might call them, but those don’t really work when you’re wearing heels. There is a solution though, called slingback liners, these are like ballet socks, but cut in half with a transparent elastic attached to help it stay on your foot. This will help keep your toes from rubbing up against the side of your heels, which leads to my next point.
6. Moleskin
No, I don’t mean the hipster notebooks that everybody and their mother uses, I mean actual moleskin which isn’t actually the skin of any animal, but is like a soft cotton with an adhesive backing. You can cut a small piece and apply it to any part of your foot that is rubbing against your shoes. Similar to the toe socks, but it helps target the specific areas where you might be getting blisters.
7. Break In Your Shoes
It’s really important that you break in your shoes to prevent things like blisters, so when you buy a new pair of shoes, wear them around the house for a bit so that they adjust to your foot shape. You can also invest in a shoe stretcher so you don’t have to go through the trouble of breaking in every pair of shoes. If you’re not sure about which method you want to use, try breaking them in yourself, first before springing for the shoe stretcher, which is only about $25 but you can have your cobbler do it for you for $12.
8. Increase Your Traction
Guys, it’s really important that there be some traction on the bottom of your shoes so that when you walk the shoe doesn’t slip from right out under you. Some shoes already have this built in, but if the bottom of your shoes (see below where your toes go) are smooth then you will have to do this yourself. You can take a piece of sandpaper and sand the bottom of your shoes. Be careful not to go too far, but sand your shoes a bit so that they’re scratched up a tad on the bottom. That way when you wear your shoes on a slippery surface, or even a wet surface, your shoes will stay in place where ever you put your foot down.
9. Weird…But True
This is a really weird tip, but if you tape your 3rd and 4th toes together then a nerve in your 3rd toe won’t pinch when you wear your heels. This obviously only works for close toed shoes, but in my experience it definitely helps. Now I don’t suggest using cello tape and especially not duct tape! I like to use nude medical tape so that the cotton cushions my feet and it’s not as visible, but if you can find any medical or surgical tape it will work as long as the adhesive is strong and its made out of a cushion-y material. As weird as this tip is, I can vouch that it works!
10. Give Your Feet a REST!!
After a long day of wearing heels you should definitely give your feet a rest! What I like to do is fill a bucket or other container up with hot water from the shower, then just set that off the side of the bed. Then I’ll soak my feet for about 10-15 minutes, whatever I feel comfortable with. I’ll then take a special scrub I use only for foot treatments, not my regular body scrub, and use it all over my feet and calves, scrubbing and massaging my legs which not only helps my feet get back to normal but increases blood flow. While scrubbing you should also remove any dirt and clean your toe nails which can get dirty when you’re wearing heels. Then soak my feet again to remove the scrub, dry them off, and moisturize my legs. It might be a little more effort, but you’ll realize the difference when you don’t do this after a long night in heels and end up with sore feet in the morning. Not good! Also, you definitely shouldn’t follow the example of Kim Kardashian and wear heels on a daily basis. If you wear heels for a day, you have to give your feet a break the next day. If you wear heels in your professional line of work, then you should consider some fold up flats to wear in your downtime, and only wear your heels when it’s necessary. It’s extremely important that you take care of your feet, otherwise not only will you not be able to wear heels but you won’t be able to walk properly in the future.
I really hope that this guide helps people because I know a lot of my friends come to me and ask me how I walk in heels. It’s not easy, and practice is a part of it, but these tips will probably help you go a lot longer in heels so you don’t end the night with your heels in your hand and dirt (or worse!) on your feet.
xoxo
Anagha C.
Ribbons and Bows xoxo 